GTD FAQs

David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done, has proposed a fundamentally different approach. David argues that what is required is not elusive time management but really self-management–what we do with ourselves in any situation or context, time being just one variable. It involves dealing effectively with all of the things we have to do and want to do, both personally and professionally.

GTD is about capturing things we collect and create, deciding what (if anything) we want to do about them, organising the results of that knowledge work into a trusted system we can review appropriately and making intuitive strategic and tactical choices about what to do at any point in time from our options.

In this way, GTD provides a comprehensive approach for increasing productivity while decreasing stress.

Reading the book will definitely help you get started. In fact, many people who come to the seminar have already read the book (though it is not required). While the book is great from a knowledge perspective, the seminars help from a practical point of view. It is designed as a workshop where you actually start implementing GTD and get immediate feedback from the seminar leader and the many participants in the room, who coach one another on fundamental behaviours throughout the course. It is the difference between knowing something and actually doing it correctly. You will also gain key best practices for implementing GTD, presented in a variety of formats to accommodate many different learning styles. Here is a list of our upcoming seminars

It is an all-to-commonly-held idea that to be more successful, one must accept more stress. Yet we have seen time and again how computer technology transforms what were once difficult, complex, and even stressful tasks into routine clicks of a button. GTD is a form of “mental technology”–a thought process that has been tried and tested in some of the busiest working environments around–that accelerates productivity without requiring more effort. In fact, most people experience a great decrease in stress while increasing the amount they get done. Simply put, GTD is a smarter way to work and live.

If you got to this site because someone recommended “this GTD thing” to you, you’re not alone. If you discovered something that consistently helped you to get more done with less stress, wouldn’t you be pretty enthusiastic too? No matter what claims others have made for their adoption of GTD, we recommend you try it out on a practical basis to see what applying GTD can do for you. A great place to start is at one of our upcoming public seminars.

Although time management and effectiveness training can sometimes be seen as “remedial”, GTD is different. It is frequently adopted as part of high-potential and partner-track programmes because it consistently helps some of the brightest, busiest, and most ambitious people to get more done. Furthermore, it often makes high performance more sustainable over the long term. Often, with increased performance comes increased satisfaction, and we often find that people we coach on GTD are promoted soon afterward.

David Allen, the creator of GTD, has likened the practice to a martial art in that there are not necessarily more advanced moves to learn, but that the fundamentals–both in understanding and execution–are something to be continually refined over the course of one’s life and career. For this reason, there is no one linear progression, but rather GTD practitioners often find value in re-visiting the book, public seminars, and one-on-one coaching at various stages of their evolution.

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**FAQ originally sourced, with thanks, from Next Action Associates, the Certified Partner for GTD in the UK and Ireland. www.next-action.eu